High and Mighty

All cats like high perches, but of mine, only Cammie enjoys jumping up onto the bookcases in the bedroom. She may be the only one lithe enough to accomplish it. I don’t know why she has decided to do this now and then. She doesn’t do anything in particular up there; I think she may just enjoy the commanding aspect she gains from it. She leaps from the near by cat-tree, which is about four high. The bookcases are, I think six and a half feet tall. The princess has to cover a lateral distance of three feet or so, as well. Not bad for an eleven year old.

Cammie reminds me in some ways of my late friend Tungsten. She too would jump to high positions. As she grew older, I was afraid that she would hurt herself getting down, so I would offer her my shoulders. Tungsten liked to lie on them, so she’d climb onto my shoulders and I would bring her down, like an elevator, and she would step off at a lower level. Cammie, after visiting the litter-box for a deposit of number two, rockets around the apartment, startling the other beasts; that is what Tungsten did, flying across the house, an orange missile. I think if the tiny terror had lived, Cammie would have tried to be her friend. I don’t know why I believe that; perhaps it was the princess’s constant shadowing of Tungsten. The latter wanted nothing to do with the newcomer, though, and would hiss ferociously at her proximity - just as Cammie does with any of the others.

But Cammie is her own cat, after all. Why she enjoys the heights of the bookcase, I don’t know. But as long as she can fly up and down again without trouble, I’ll be happy to see her there.